Chapter 464: Turned Gray But Couldn’t Grow Old Together
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
“Mom, why are you suddenly talking about this? Let’s go eat.” Feeling really unwilling to talk about this, the five kids changed the topic.
Mu Jingzhe didn’t harp on it and just stopped talking.
Although she couldn’t make Ji Buwang stay, with his ashes, Mu Jingzhe still felt willful for once. She wasn’t in a hurry to return him to Old Master Ji, so she kept him by her side.
Now that she had Ji Buwang’s company, seeing that Shao Dong and Li Zhaodi were worried every day and kept acting as if she was made of glass, Mu Jingzhe pulled herself together.
“I’m fine. You kids should go to school. Mom, you and Dad must be busy. I’m fine. My hands are much better now. I’m alright.”
Mu Jingzhe had actively cooperated with the treatment and seemed to have really recovered. However, when she went to the hospital to check on the dressing again, she fainted as soon as she encountered an emergency patient.
The patient was a woman, and it was said that she had been beaten by her husband. Her head was covered in blood. Mu Jingzhe had only taken a glance at her, but that one glance had made her vision darken and she had fainted.
Her sudden fainting spell had startled Li Zhaodi and the rest again. However, the doctors didn’t discover anything wrong with her, and Mu Jingzhe quickly woke up.
“I just saw the blood on her and fainted.”
The doctor asked, “This symptom sounds like hemophobia. Have you been hemophobic1 in the past?”
Mu Jingzhe, who was stunned, suddenly looked up at the doctor. “Hemophobic?”
A trace of fear flashed across Li Zhaodi’s face. Shao Dong’s entire body tensed up. Mu Jingzhe glanced at them before looking at the doctor again. “But I didn’t have hemophobia before…”
Now that she said that, the doctor was uncertain.
In the end, because Mu Jingzhe was fine, she went back. However, Mu Jingzhe was very quiet the entire way back. Li Zhaodi and Shao Dong didn’t dare say much either. Coincidentally, just as they were about to return home, they met their neighbor.
The little girl staying next door had accidentally cut her pinky, and it was bleeding. She was crying as she went to look for her mother just as Mu Jingzhe and the others returned.
Mu Jingzhe only caught a glimpse of her finger before her vision darkened again.
This time, it was confirmed that Mu Jingzhe indeed suffered from hemophobia.
In the past, Shao Dong and the others would have been very nervous and would definitely have thought of ways to get this illness treated. After all, even though this illness wasn’t a big problem, it wouldn’t be a small problem if it flared up either.
However, this time, it wasn’t just Shao Dong. Even Shao Xi and the others didn’t say anything, let alone mention any kind of treatment. They only decided to pay more attention in the future.
They tried their best to hide it, but the word ‘hemophobia’ still made them very nervous.
Mu Jingzhe didn’t expose them or say much. She remained silent for two days and was in a daze the whole time.
When Li Zhaodi saw this, she felt so anxious that a blister formed at the corner of her mouth. The five kids kept paying attention to her and felt very nervous. Xiao Wu was filled with frustration because he realized that he couldn’t cheer Mu Jingzhe up no matter what.
When Mu Jingzhe came back to her senses and realized that they were so worried, she felt very guilty. She pulled herself together again and said that she was fine and began smiling again.
After observing her for two days, Li Zhaodi and the rest realized that Mu Jingzhe seemed to have really recovered and had started busying herself with work. She really smiled and had even started cooking for them.
Shao Dong, Li Zhaodi, and the rest heaved a sigh of relief, but Little Bei had a lot on her mind. Mu Jingzhe’s hands had yet to recover, so Little Bei had been helping her comb her hair. She had noticed that Mu Jingzhe’s hair had been turning white lately.
Only a bit of her hair had turned white previously, and that bit could still have been hidden. But now, there was more and more white hair, so much of it that it couldn’t be hidden.
Mu Jingzhe stopped letting Little Bei comb her hair and even began wearing a hat. However, Little Bei had been paying attention and she watched as Mu Jingzhe’s hair turned white.
She couldn’t conceal it even if she wanted to. Shao Dong, Li Zhaodi, and the others weren’t blind and quickly noticed it.
When Li Zhaodi removed the hat from Mu Jingzhe’s head and realized that she had even more white hair than her, she wailed. “Haven’t we talked things through? Why would your hair turn white? Jingzhe, you’ll make me die from pain.”
Mu Jingzhe really wanted to say that she had dyed her hair white, but no one would dye their hair white in that era. Besides, hair dye wasn’t popular yet, so Mu Jingzhe couldn’t dye her hair black even if she wanted to.
She felt even more upset when she saw Li Zhaodi pounding her chest and crying. “I’m sorry… I made you worry again.”
She wanted to be a good daughter to Li Zhaodi and not make her worry, but she had failed.
When Li Zhaodi heard her apologize, her heart ached even more. “Don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong, Jingzhe.”
Held in her embrace, Mu Jingzhe didn’t move for a long time.
At night, she sat before the mirror and smiled bitterly at her white-haired self. She had seen the White-Haired Demoness1 and read many stories of people’s hair turning white overnight, but she had never expected that it would one day happen to her.
Her hair hadn’t turned white overnight, but it had slowly and silently changed.
Mu Jingzhe’s gaze landed on Ji Buwang’s ashes. “I finally turned gray with you, didn’t I?”
Ji Buwang naturally wouldn’t answer, and Mu Jingzhe didn’t say the words ‘turn old and gray together’ because even though they had agreed on that, only the ‘turning gray’ part had come true. The two of them hadn’t grown old together.
Later on, Mu Jingzhe began wearing a hat pretty much all the time. Shao Qihai came to the house a few times and wanted to say something when he saw her hat, but in the end, he didn’t say anything.
More than a month later, Mu Jingzhe’s hands had clearly gotten a lot better. Although they couldn’t go back to normal, there wouldn’t be a problem if she didn’t exert force.
When she heard that Old Master Ji had been recuperating in the hospital after his return, Mu Jingzhe asked Xiao Wu to go back and accompany him.
She wanted to keep her word and really take Ji Buwang’s place and be filial, but in the end, she thought about it and didn’t go. It wasn’t that she wasn’t filial, but it wasn’t right for the two of them to be together at the moment.
They were both heartbroken, so it might be better if they were apart. She also didn’t want Old Master Ji to see her hair and kept thinking of dyeing it black before meeting him.
In any case, it would be better to meet him again after some time.
Mu Jingzhe reminded Xiao Wu of it a lot. After he went over, she heard that Old Master Ji had recovered a lot because he was happy. Later on, he even got discharged and went home.
Mu Jingzhe was relieved. She had originally told Xiao Wu to come back to take the final exam when Old Master Ji had almost recovered. In the end, after a month, she suddenly received news that Old Master Ji was critically ill.
The good health he had experienced previously during Xiao Wu’s visits seemed to have drawn out his remaining life. He had clearly been fine the day before and had even agreed to go hiking the next day, but in the middle of the night, he collapsed.
Xiao Wu contacted Mu Jingzhe. Although he didn’t say everything, Xiao Wu was very nervous and sounded as if Old Master Ji wouldn’t make it this time.
The thing she was most worried about had still happened. Mu Jingzhe set off that very night with Ji Buwang’s ashes and returned Ji Buwang to Old Master Ji.
Old Master Ji was waiting for Ji Buwang and Mu Jingzhe. When he saw her, he smiled and stroked the urn containing Ji Buwang’s ashes.
“Don’t worry, Jingzhe. I’ll find Buwang. He shouldn’t have gone far. I’ll take him with me after I find him. You don’t need to worry that he’ll be alone and won’t recognize anyone.”
